Ruby/Sapphire also had some of the worst new Pokemon in the entire franchise, e.g. Cradily and Ludicolo.

gog has autumn sales going on right now, and I came across Astebreed, which looks like a blend of Gradius, Starfox, and Zone of the Enders. My wallet is two stories away from me on purpose right now because holy shit did somebody reach into my dream journal and make that game specifically for -me-?

It's 2007. I'm on my way to storm a post-apocalyptic garrison when I stop and help a group of friendly laser rifle-wielding scientists who are fighting a bunch of retarded cybersoldiers on jeeps. All goes smoothly, until a blood dragon shows up, starts shooting its fucking EYE LASERS, tears everyone apart, and then starts chasing after me. I try to make a run for it and, faced with certain death, decide to jump off a cliff. Holy shit, it's actually a bigass waterfall, I hope I don't land on rocks... I plunge into the water and straight into the jaws of the trolliest cybernetic crocodile in the mechanimal kingdom. I wrestle the fucker and manage to terminate it with my neon Rambo knife. I climb out of the pool with barely any health left and find an ancient VHS tape nearby. The awesomeness courses through me as I level up and throw electrified horns into the air like a true 80s badass action hero.

So yeah, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Fun game.

So The Evil Within was amazing. I guess I can see how it's conflicting, but I loved it in the end.

The game is pure action, which should be expected with a Mikami title. But what it does far better than RE4/RE5 and Dead Space, is that Sebastian is vulnerable. Right up to the end of the game, where my health bar had doubled with upgrades and such... every single hit was still a game changing moment. Every hit your took was a blow. Rarely was I ever walking around with full health either. There's no auto healing/transitional bs moments either. I only got through about half the upgrades as well, so you really want to make sure the upgrades you pick count and work for you.

Ammo is about as scarce as it gets since the original RE. The game reminded me of Half-Life 2 in this regard, item placement felt so intricate... you were always given just barely enough to get by said section or X boss. But every bullet that missed was a major loss. I can't even remember the last time a game made me really feel like that and that frustrated (fun frustrated) when I'd miss a single shot. Every single shell was precious.

The game was just straight up a lot tougher than RE4 and Dead Space (which I find to be really easy). So that was welcoming as well. The game told me I died 53 times when the credits rolled. Also clocked in about 14 hours, so it's a fair length too.

I loved the assortment of traps and the world trying to kill you as well. So it's not just all about crazy enemies. Those explosive mine traps were hilarious, I'd be impressed if someone could really perfect the timing on those through a first run. I usually got them after awhile, but they were still intense moments and often times, that one mistake meant death. There were even sections later on like this burning kitchen where you're frantaically trying to escape while there's traps and spinning blades roaming the ground... it all kind of reminded me a lot of what Silent Hill Downpour tried to do with its otherworld, but the execution here was just far better. And it's constant. No environment was safe, aside from the save hub.

My biggest complaint initially was the pacing. The way the game progresses is a bit jarring, but give it time. It got better and even more fun as it went for me and the bonkers plot ends up being a little cool once things fall into place. It kind of changed my whole outlook on it in some regards, in a good way. And although I wasn't sure about the pacing early on, I beat it in three sittings pretty much. It was addicting.

You will die a lot. But the checkpoints/saving were frequent enough. Not too much, but you will die and probably have to go through some well placed trial and error at several points. Learn and adapt.

I wouldn't put it above Alien Isolation or Dark Souls 2 for me this year, but could be on my top 5. If you're a fan of RE4/Dead Space styled non-cover shooters, it's top notch. And exceeds where those, FEAR, Doom 3, and many others fail... Sebastian is a fragile guy and your arsenal is minimal. Intense, is the word I'd say. The whole experience is awesome tension that feels just right. There's lots of unlockables, NG+, and other stuff like most of Mikami's awesome games, so I can see it having high replay value too.

Good stuff.

You mean design wise, I assume, since those are some of the most useful pokes in stall teams.

Well, let's say repels were never quite as useful as they were in 3rd gen, haha. Speaking of XY, I wasn't too happy with the MegaEvos either, they make the core game much easier, but they provide new layers of strategy in competitive. I think it was geared towards online play and to make some previously useless pokes into (at least) viable choices. I ended up liking the idea.

Anyone here playing Fez? I got it free for PS plus on August and left it there for a while, now I've picked it up again and I'm really digging it so far. The design and the soundtrack are great and the fact that you never die allows me to just focus on exploring every single world.

Yeah, I played Fez a while back. A fun little game with a solid central mechanic and pleasing presentation. While I don't really have any problems with what's there, I do think the game could've benefited from some sort of Mario-like powerup system that could confer temporary bonuses, or something like that which could add another dimension to it and bump it up into the next level of quality. As it stands, it's not one of my favorite games of all time, but I definitely enjoyed it and feel it was time and money well-spent.

Hated it. Hate the creator too, hope he never does another boring game again.



I'd be curious to see what you think of The Evil Within failsafe. The art direction was closer to Silent Hill than RE to me.

Hey Xeo, you're back. I think we actually went over TEW and it seemed like it didn't top the best of RE.

I'm not really sure if Fez could have benefited from having power ups, it would have ended up becoming an entirely different game.

And I also hate its creator, a shame such talent was wasted on a real life troll.

Well you're going to have to wait a good long while, because it's fucking $60 right now and I'd rather shove an orange up my ass than pay that much. I'll wait like 2 months until it's 75% off on Steam


Not necessarily powerups, just SOMETHING to give it an extra dimension (no pun intended, ho ho ho). As it was, it was just a bit one-note. If there's ever a Fez 2, I'm sure they'll do something like that.

I don't hate the creator. After watching that documentary that featured him and some other indie game devs, I basically just feel really sorry for him. He's a hard working guy but also abysmally depressed and got sucked into internet discussions of his games and other things that he is passionate about far too easily. I think he'd do alright working for a slightly bigger company with bosses there to handle PR for him and generally keep him away from the internet while he works.

Fez was cool though. I've realized recently that I'm pretty jaded with retro sidescrolling platformers in general, but I had a good time playing Fez. The core gameplay was fun but as failsafeman said not really engaging enough for me to bother trying to 100% the game.

Yeah but didn't he just kept the money that was gonna be used to fund Fez 2 for himself and therefore trolled everyone who donated on kick starter?

Anyway I feel the game plays just fine the way it is, but if there's ever a sequel they better add something else, otherwise it'll become just more of the same.

Are we talking about the same person? He sounded like a complete douche in the few things I saw, then claimed that all Japanese developers suck or something. Because his game certainly isn't influenced by that stuff...


I wasn't expecting that myself. I'd probably put it above RE5 (which I think is a solid game honestly, fun gameplay). TEW doesn't have a forced AI partner throughout its entirety, that's always nice. Certainly blows RE6 and Revelations completely out of the water. But yeah, I wouldn't put it above RE4 or the Dead Space's, but it's still awesome.


Why not bananas? I wanted to ask what you'd get it for... the PC port doesn't sound too good, but who knows.

Well a Gamecube is the most recent console I own, so...

If you're wondering, I played Downpour with a friend who owns an Xbox 360.

So Dragon Age: Inquisition is fucking amazing? I'm in shock. I can barely even put into words how exciting and unexpected this is. First off, this is the first Bioware game where cross-game choices actually do make major, palpable differences. It's pretty much what Bioware promised ME3 would deliver but didn't. Unlike Mass Effect, where your previous game choices emerge in embarrassingly expected ways, ("Hi Shepard, you did X in ME1; here's some money") the decisions of your previous heros can show up everywhere: from major, world-altering changes all the way to quiet, subtle differences that you could miss if you blink.

Beyond that, the writing is generally stellar, surpassing Origins (and of course, ME and BG, which were mediocre) by a wide margin. David Gaider and crew did their fucking fantasy homework and it shows; virtually every major plot beat is a deconstruction of a familiar trope, but unlike hacks like Neil Gaiman, it feels organic and understated. And despite the game presenting a clearly agnostic view of religion as a whole, it manages to explore it in a respectful, thoughtful way. How often times is Christian mysticism, Tengrism, Jainism and even Zoroastrianism not only eluded to but gets fully re-tooled and integrated into a single mythology? Torment toyed with a lot of philosophical outlooks but I don't remember there being much religious exploration. If you honestly think Dragon Age is sub-Robert Jordan, Tad Williams or Terry Goodkind claptrap... then you obviously haven't played the game.

The only glaring issue right now is in the combat, which generally has a firm basis but flimsy implementation. The much-touted "tactical cam" mode barely even works because it's locked far too close to the ground, and the scaled-down A.I. tactics for your party members (at least in comparison to Origins' generally robust tactics menu) almost mandates having to micromanage each and every fight if you're playing on high difficulty. Even still, combat can be really fun and challenging if you're able to get over the major UI problems.

I'll stop jizzing over this now. Needless to say, it's the most enjoyable experience I've had with a game in a long, LONG time, and possibly the single best fantasy game I've ever played. No, really. It's that good.

Read Adam Smith's review of it on respected gaming blog Rock Paper Shotgun if you're still in doubt.

Tad Williams being lumped alongside of Jordan and Goodkind make me sad... Williams is a legit good author, dammit.

What? There was never a Fez 2 Kickstarter so... that definitely didn't happen.



He said (or meant) that modern Japanese games suck. And you know, there are exceptions of course, but it's pretty undeniable that the Japanese video game industry is far, far from what it used to be. Being Phil Fish, he of course had to say it in the most tactless way possible though. Obviously he loves classic Japanese games, Fez is basically a love letter to that era.

I got near the end of Fez and got hit by a save bug. I liked what I played, but my save corrupting pissed me right off.

And I disagree with him on the Japanese games and how he voiced that opinion. It made him look like a colossal dickbag. Actually, in the same video Jonathan Blow doesn't really come off well with me either, even though he articulates his point better than Fish.

Well I got the wrong idea then because his statement said "I take the money and I run" which led me to think there was a ks campaign or some shit like that.

I do share his view on modern japanese games though. To illustrate: I just finished "Ni no Kuni" and while it had gorgeous animation and character design, the game overall was so mediocre that in the end it became more of a chore to finish rather than an enjoyable experience, I'd only recommend it to hardcore Ghibli fans. It is fair to say that japanese games might have good graphic design, but everything else is so boring and/or confusing that many, like myself, don't see any worth in playing them. Even games that apparently were meant to "shake" the industry like TeW ended up having such a dense story that they just didn't meet everyone's expectations (or so I was told).

I'm still chalking up Mass Effect 3 due to the forced accelerated time schedule seemingly put upon by EA and the problems with them missing the story lead that was forced over into the Star Wars MMO. Mass Effect 3, mechanically, is a fucking revelation. The combat is fast, snappy, and they struck a good balance between power customization and raw, third-person shooting combat / power usage. And to me, they successfully restored at least 50% of the faith they lost with me with the Citadel downloadable-content. That content pack was absolute prime.

I still feel like if EA gave them at the very least, another six months and at most, another year, I feel like that game would've been so much better than what it was. There's a lot of stuff that feels shoe-horned in, half-baked, or entirely missing.

I may have hopes for the next Mass Effect, mostly because that universe is one of my favorite.

So I beat Lords of the Fallen yesterday. Barely started NG+ but then a Dark Souls II coop friend came online so I played that instead... and holy shit is the movement so much faster and smoother, haha. People complaining that DkSII was slow and stiff compared to past Souls games have not played LotF. xD I actually fell off a bridge once because I was not expecting the speed of movement, to our mutual hilarity.

Soooo, how does this game compare to Souls? Well.... it's been called "Souls lite", and... it really is. In just about every aspect. There is literally nothing in the game that improves anything at all over the Souls games, it's pretty much inferior (to varying degrees, sometimes minor, sometimes major) in every aspect except the graphics (which is a given, considering the generation gap). It's still fun, and scratched the itch for an aRPG, at least, and the environments are very nice-looking. To its credit, it was fun enough that I'll probably buy the DLC, but that's 'cause I'm always starving for more third-person hack-and-slash RPGs.

The story is completely forgettable, as is the protagonist who has no personality beyond generic bald angry white tough guy (not to mention his ugly face is plastered all over the game media, ugh). There was zero excuse for not including a character creator; it would have made the game so much more fun to me, and nothing of value would have been lost. Dialogue and voice acting ranges from mediocre to cringe-worthy. Luckily the lame story isn't too ubiquitous, cut scenes are mercifully short and infrequent, and there's a bunch of lore audio notes that you can ignore, which I generally did. Music is okay, generally forgettable but not bad or intrusive.

The game doesn't hold your hand too much beyond the initial tutorial section, there are a handful of secrets (I think I missed a few side-quests by doing stuff out of order but I doubt I missed much) and exploration is rewarding. I really wish they had explained how to break the breakable walls though, it's not at all explained in-game and is completely counter-intuitive; I had to look it up because I was fed up trying everything against a wall that was very obviously breakable. Combat is pretty easy and way more forgiving than Souls; resting at checkpoints refills your health and potions and does not respawn monsters (only dying or exiting/entering new areas does that). However it doesn't refill ALL your potions, at least; it took me some time to figure it out, but basically, checkpoints have red crystals hovering around them, and the number of crystals present corresponds to the number of potions that get refilled. The crystals respawn over time so if you're exploring an area for a while, you can slowly refill potions at the same checkpoint every now and then. No long trek to bosses, there's always a checkpoint nearby. You do have a "bloodstain" (here it's your "ghost") that you need to retrieve with your lost XP, and dying before reaching it creates a new ghost. This ghost also fades overtime (by percent increments the longer you take to retrieve it), unlike bloodstains, but there are some semi-rare consumable items that make you immediately recover your ghost so if you have a large stack of XP you fear for, you can always use those. You can also bank your XP safely at checkpoints without spending it on attributes right away, but that makes you lose an XP multiplier, so it's an okay trade-off.

Unlike Souls, where agility and mobility always triumphs over heavy armours and tanks and high defense, it's pretty much the other way around; the game is much easier playing tanks with high defense than light-weight rogues. That's because rolling and dodging is not nearly as precise as in Souls games (I find the hitboxes to be generally inferior), and even at max lightness it feels slow and stiff, like I said at the beginning; playing Dark Souls II immediately after this made me feel like I was suddenly playing a twitchy and overly fast character action game xD. So while I started with the Rogue path (which is apparently the hardest mode, Cleric being "normal" and Warrior being "easy"...), I ended up opting for a middle-ground: medium-dodge, stacking as much defense as I could without doing the complete whale roll, and generally using faster weapons. I used a two-handed staff for most of the game, as it's one of the fastest weapon types, then eventually found a great hammer that was much slower but too strong to ignore, and by late game I eventually found amazing daggers (and a bit later, shortswords) that scaled really well with my higher agility, so right now in early NG+ I'm rocking a pretty strong shortsword that makes quick work of most mobs, especially when dual-wielded.

Environments look good, with dense and detailed geometry and lighting effects of varying effectiveness, but they are not incredibly varied. It's mostly the same citadel and monastery for the whole game, with the Rhogar dimension having a few more different environments but that's it. The game is short and compact, took me about 24 hours and I was going really slow and taking my time. The dungeons can have quite the labyrinthine layouts, I still don't master them fully, unlike in Souls games where after a few visits I start to know the layout really well because of its tight and memorable dungeon design. And you often run into locked doors or locked chests, and later find keys and you're not sure which key goes where, I had to start taking notes at some point.
Enemies are not incredibly varied either, there's only maybe a dozen of them for the whole game, probably less (~10 enemy types, I'd say). Bosses are almost all of the large humanoid knight type as well. The game is clearly a budget title from an inexperienced dev, and it shows. Still, it's not a complete disaster, maybe a sequel or future title will use their potential more. Hopefully.

The PS4 version is grossly under-optimized, sadly. You need a fairly strong PC to run it at max settings, so I got the PS4 version, but... I wonder how well my PC would have handled it, compared to a PS4, really. Framerate is generally worse than non-Blighttown Dark Souls and kinda chugs almost the whole game through, and this is coming from someone who doesn't mind Dark Souls's console framerate for the most part, by the way, I'm not even that sensitive to FPS drops...!. It crashed at least once for me, during a boss fight even, which was kind of infuriating, and while they apparently fixed the screen tearing in a day 1 patch, there's one section where it's still there and it's massive (the uppermost level of the Planetarium). Mercifully your stay at this area is very brief but holy crap that was headache inducing. It has a couple of minor glitches too, but I didn't see experience anything gamebreaking, luckily.


So uh, tl;dr: game is worth playing for a-RPG fans, but I wouldn't recommend paying full price for it (gift or sale is ideal ).

+ Combat is fun, inferior to Souls but still pretty solid;
+ Exploration is rewarding;
+ Environments look very good for the most part and have a nice art direction;
+ Character stats/customization is decent with a few options for varying your playstyle (but could have used more options for magic, weapons, etc., it's a bit "lite");

- Art direction for characters and equipment is very meh; goofy generic fantasy with Blizzard-like giant pauldrons galore (no Fashion Lords for this game );
- Fairly easy, don't expect a Souls-like challenge (that said, depending on your playstyle, some places won't be a complete cakewalk either... grrr those fucking mages!);
- Story and characters are utterly forgettable;
- Voice acting and dialogue ranges from mediocre to terrible;
- Music is forgettable;
- Performance is not very good on console.

I should probably note that the PC version has received like 3 patches and the console versions have had only 1. I might wait until further patches before tackling NG+ and/or a new build.

Welp, just put Lords of the Fallen on my Christmas list. I and especially my parents thank you, because they literally had no idea what to get me aside from the usual clothes and chocolate. There may even be a Steam sale I could tip them off for. Thanks!

Hah, and I put Bound by Flame on mine. So if we end up both getting these games and loving it, we can be bros/sis, and if we both hate them, we can blame each others!

...Or something.

Oh gawd, I'm still so concerned about recommending that one, because there's so much shittiness in it (especially when it comes to story/dialog/characters), but the combat is so methodical and deliberate and the crafting system so robust, I can't help but really like it. But I was also going through a "challenging game dry spell" at the time, so maybe my opinion was skewed.

Is the shitty story/dialog/etc. easily ignored, or shoved down your throat through countless cut scenes? It was shitty in LotF too, well, mediocre at least (with a couple of really cringe moments) but at least cut scenes were few and far between and usually short.

Yeah... there's quite a lot of dialog/codex entries and such that you don't technically have to engage in but it does give you context. It's not all universally terrible, there's a lot of great ideas but they're wedged in deep and you have to do some prying. Voice acting runs the gamut too. Maybe you should check out a Let's Play of it on YT before committing to it?

Doesn't sound worth touching then. I'm already stockpiled enough to keep me busy until Bloodborne drops. When that's out, LotF's existence will revert to nothingness.

EDIT


I have a hard time getting over how bad the art direction is, especially the character designs, the armor, etc. How could anyone look at this and not laugh:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/14/nov/da11.jpg
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/14/nov/da10.jpg

I played a good chunk of Origins and ended up hating it though. 2 just looked terrible. Could you still recommend it?

Whoever recommended me Crackdown, my hats off to you, it's been a blast so far. I really like how you can make your character stronger/faster/jump higher, eventually performing moves such as throwing vehicles at gangs/kicking down large fences. The controls are easy to learn and feel correct, although a little confusing where to go at first, once you work out what the pointers are it's a breeze. The vehicles handle reasonably well and don't flip all over the place like in GTA V. One little thing that annoys with these types of games is if you get stuck on a cliff side you have to essentially commit suicide, but here you can just jump back up and be on your way. I think there needs to be a Judge Dredd game in a similar vein.

lmao, that actually really sounds like it'd be an amazing combo.

Apparently Halo: The Master Chief Collection was released before it was even properly finished! My buddy bought it about 10 days ago, and the online multiplayer still doesn't work. Paying 60$ for a game that's not even really finished is an absolute joke.

So... Shutdown stopped posting in here?

Crackdown rules hard. I love how you can just mercilessly slaughter the people you're sworn to protect and serve and the announcer guy is just like, "hey, don't do that." Just wait until you can kick cars like a kilometer and leap tall buildings in a single bound! Seriously though, jumping from building to building while harpooning dudes to walls from on high never gets old.

Quality modern day AAA games.

Crackdown was an interesting concept than never moved beyond, "punch cars and jump up to get these orbs!" Shame, too.

The orbs were half the fun.

Orbs...Jumping....punching???

So I got ESO a couple weeks ago and I have to say that I like it. I mean it would be a much better experience if my laptop was a much more gaming oriented system, or if I had a built desktop. I consistently get kicked to the login screen, which I am pretty sure is caused by my wireless router being old and slow. I also spawn halfway through the floor anytime an area is loaded, so I have to wait for about ten seconds for the rest of the area to load until I can even move.

The game plays very well and the use of melee and magic are practically mandatory unlike Skyrim which you could go through without using either. The storylines for the smaller quests are fairly blah but the main quest stories are pretty cool. One large gripe I have about PvE is that in order to move to another section of Tamriel you must be relatively close in level with the environmental enemies otherwise you are screwed. I wanted to get out of Black Marsh and into Skyrim but I was 10 levels behind the environment. Now however I have completed practically all of the quests in Eastmarch as a level 33 and The Rift environment starts at level 41.

All in all the game is fun and I keep wanting to play it for various reasons, but I feel like I would have a much better time if my system was better.

As far as the Evil Within goes; I love it. I have yet to beat it because of getting caught up in ESO but what I have been through is fun. The game certainly feels like what survival horror should be and I think it does the genre proud. Certain moment can be frustrating though. For example the first encounter with the Keeper took me several tries.

I also got DRIVECLUB since I am huge into cars, but I have to say that I am quite disappointed. I love the way Forza and Gran Turismo play and that's how I was hoping it would play, but it doesn't. The tracks aren't real tracks and there is no tuning and modification of the vehicles like you see in Forza. The game is fun to play, but from a motorhead's perspective the game feels a little too arcadey.

inFAMOUS: Second Son was good but lacked that addictive feel the first two had. Maybe it's because Cole wasn't the main character or because the story seemed to be lacking drive, but I couldn't get as into it as I did with the first two. Don't get me wrong, Seattle in that game is by far the most life like and accurate portrayal of a city in a videogame. Not in the sense that it looked just like Seattle but the fact that it felt like something that would exist in the real world. The graphics were amazing too. Gameplay was fun but often repetitive. The story was good but I wasn't drawn in by it and portions where I was supposed to empathize with the character I found myself not caring.

I know this post is getting long but I just want to speak on a couple games I am looking forward to. Bloodborne is one of them. The dark feel and environment of the game looks promising, and quite frankly it's been a while since I have played a good hack and slash.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt however is the game I am looking forward to the most for this generation so far. I absolutely loved every bit of the first two. Story, gameplay, mechanics, dialogue. Everything was on point. Plus it truly is what CD Projekt Red says it is, an adult oriented game for a mature audience. Yes there is sex in it and yes there is swearing but the subject matter and philosophical meaning behind your actions make it much more of a thinking mans game. There is no clear-cut good and evil. Decisions are tough to make most of the time.

By the way, let's not forget that Bethesda used wyverns as dragons in their game because the amount of parts moving on an actual dragon would be too complex to put in a game, but CD said fuck that and did it anyway. I love this company for going above and beyond with their games.

Now I am done haha.

That seems like a pretty common occurrence these days. I could understand why some games like BF4 and GTAV had problems on launch but some of these developers are being lazy. Last year a lot of games that were launched on the release of the next-gen consoles had various problems because the developers were rushed to get it done. But it's not like that anymore. DRIVECLUB was delayed nearly a year from its original release date and the online for it is still spotty. A game that was based completely around its online play.

a fucking classic